Moral Disagreement in Theories of Practical Ethics

ABSTRACT What is the point of doing practical ethics? Is it to find fruitful modes of reasoning so that the people can make up their mind about contested issues? Or is it rather to try to solve those problems once and for all? This article argues that the epistemology of moral disagreement provides good reasons in favor of the former view. In a recent paper, Andrei Poama suggests understanding public policy ethics (EPP) as falling into two broad categories – applied and constructive EPP. The main difference is their reaction to the factum of moral disagreement: proponents of applied EPP explain moral disagreement away, while proponents of constructive EPP take it to be a fundamental characteristic of morality. This article takes Poama's distinction to suggest a path to decide which of the two approaches to EPP is ‘the right one’, namely to take into account the debate about peer disagreement in epistemology. The article argues that the most promising theory of epistemic peer disagreement – the ‘Total Evidence View’ – fits constructive EPP quite naturally and that this speaks for constructive against applied approaches to EPP and to practical ethics more generally.